


Petrichor

by thor20



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-26
Updated: 2018-08-31
Packaged: 2019-06-16 17:48:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15442518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thor20/pseuds/thor20
Summary: Petrichor-noun: a pleasant smell that frequently accompanies the first rain after a long period of warm, dry weather.Bruce has changed in the days since the snap. Thor doesn't know why, or how, but he gets the feeling that something is deeply, deeply wrong.In which it rains in Wakanda, Thor sets fire to his room on accident, and somehow a storm will have to save them both.Written for Thorbruce week day 3: comfort.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I posted this on my phone, so forgive me if formatting is shit. This ties into the universe of "To the Edge of Night," but can be read as a standalone fic. Enjoy!

Andit’s all Thor’s fault, really.

 

It begins, as many things do in his life, with lightning.

The days drag on without much progress. They have chosen to stay in Wakanda for the time being, using Wakanda’s technology to track down Thanos. All of them have suites in the west wing of the palace. They rarely leave them. The only one who ever haunts the halls of the palace, these days, is Tony.

Tony Stark came crashing back to Earth a couple of months ago with two aliens in tow: Kraglin Obfonteri and Nebula. His side was torn open, the wound hastily cauterized; his blood ran with disinfectants and anesthetics. There was an alien poison in his blood that still saps strength from his limbs. He can barely stand, so he zips around Birnin Zana in a Wakandan wheelchair.  It goes faster than any wheelchair has a right to go, and it flies on miniature repulsors. 

Everyone blames Shuri for including them. Shuri blames Tony for adding them. Tony says nothing, merely vrooms away to terrorize M’Baku, who doesn’t seem to mind the distraction at all.

Nobody mentions how he still hasn’t cleaned the dirt from under his fingernails.

They are torn edges. Broken porcelain, jammed together incorrectly, gruesome gaps and jagged points grinding. Rocket shoots illegible names into the walls and drinks coffee. It’s the strongest thing anyone will let him have; the palace would be leveled in seconds if they let him get drunk, let his grief and rage loose from the floodgates. Steve performs some kind of awkward emotional dance around Tony: careful not to step on toes, eager to duck away, leaping in and out and around.

Young Queen Shuri sometimes sits on the floor in front of her brother’s throne, head on hands, elbows on knees. She waits. Okoye waits. Thor slides through the throne room on his way to the courtyard and nods politely. Okoye gives him a coolly acknowledging stare. Shuri does nothing.

 

He leaves the palace. There are still Outrider corpses on the old battlefield; even from the courtyard, he can see them, black cinders on yellow cloth.

Thor clenches his fists, and lightning forks from the sky to burn them all to ash.

 

It’s not until later - four minutes later, to be precise - that Thor learns he partially summoned Stormbreaker to him while he was incinerating the rotting Outriders. “Partially?” he echoes. “What do you mean,  _ partially _ -”

“Meaning,” Rocket drawls, crossing his arms, “Stormbreaker crashed through a couple ‘a walls trying to get to you, but never got out.”

“Yeah, it’s buried in the countertop next to my dishwasher,” Clint says. “Swing by and pick it up. I dunno if the ‘worthy’ clause applies here or not, so I don’t wanna try to lift it -”

Thor feels his jaw clench. He forces out a smile and says, “No, not anymore. That was my father’s spell. Knowledge of their like died with him.”

“Oh. Sorry, dude,” is all Clint says. Thor resists the urge to sigh, long and loud. Clint clears his throat and adds, “You got a place to room?”

Thor blinks. “What?”

“Stormbreaker zapped your room to kingdom come,” Tony says. The wheels on his wheelchair are equipped; there’s a new house rule for him, where he has to keep the repulsor tech off in the palace so he doesn’t singe the floors. “Everything’s on fire. Everything’s supposed to be fireproof, too, which makes that a great achievement, I guess. No bed, no bathroom. Kitchen’s shot to hell, coffee machine’s broken.”

“Oh, the horror,” Rocket says flatly.

“I think there’s an empty room at the end of the hall,” Steve chimes in, and he’s so awkwardly far away from them - specifically Tony - that he’s practically shouting. “You can -” But something about moving into another sterile room - uninhabited, un-lived-in, alien yet again - makes Thor want to tear his hair out, and he blurts out the first thing that comes to mind. 

“I’ll just move in across the hall.”

“With -?”

“With Bruce.”

Tony blinks slowly. “Ooo-kay,” he says. Thor lifts his chin defiantly. “You sure?”

“I’m down,” Bruce suddenly interjects, from behind Thor.

Thor turns to see Bruce standing by his door, holding Stormbreaker with one hand and a steaming mug of tea in the other. Over the past weeks in Wakanda, his friend has… changed. His hair has grown out to a cacophonous thunderhead of dark grey - like his hair in the days before Ultron. Now it’s streaked with white like lightning bolts through clouds. A few curls drop over his eyes. He’s a monument to injuries, his forearms still bruised and cheek scraped from tripping on the way up the stairs last week. 

Last week. Normally, his wounds would have healed by now. But the Hulk has been silent - literally, silent - ever since Thanos’s snap, and since then… 

“Thor, can you get the door for me?”

Thor realizes that he’s been staring and falters. “Sure, sorry,” he says, nearly stumbling on his way to open the door. Bruce smiles at him, and Thor smiles back, and for a moment Thor believes that everything will be fine.

But there’s a new scrape on Bruce’s elbow. His smile fades.

 

Bruce is surprisingly fine with Thor moving in. He even offers to share the bed, after Thor tries and fails to fold himself into the armchair on the first night. Thor spends that first night in a half-awake delirium of anxious terror. They face away from each other; his back feels exposed and cold in the space between them. Bruce’s breathing is soft and low, a distant breath of wind.

He’s an… interesting roommate.

Bruce hasn’t been quite the same since Thanos’s snap, Thor realizes, as he huddles too close to the edge of Bruce’s bed. At first he put it down to the hazy grief of the Dusting: seeing the world crumbling to ash, people dissolving, trees and animals vanishing, and that odd certainty of knowing that it was happening everywhere in existence as well. A haunting solidarity.

But as the weeks wound on, it was clear that it was something else.

In the beginning, Bruce was as calm and placid as always - perhaps a bit too calm: the calm of apathy, of emptiness. But then his moods began to stutter like an old car, swinging wildly between glee and rage, between warmth and cold. It’s as if a wall has been removed in his mind. Bruce once acted caged, restricted by the Hulk’s presence in his mind; now that the Hulk has “gone on vacation,” as he once put it, he no longer fears emotion. He no longer fears spontaneity.

But the Hulk never appears. No matter what happens - a computer simulation fails, Bruce stubs his toe, he picks a fight with Clint (which is beyond bizarre, nothing like the Bruce he once knew) - the Hulk never, never comes out.

Silence falls, briefly; the mattress shifts, and he feels Bruce shift closer to him. His breathing resumes. Thor clutches his blankets closer to him and burrows into the pillows, staring blankly at the sliver of moonlight between the curtains.

It’s too quiet.

 

The mornings are strange.

Sometimes Bruce is there next to him when he wakes, his grey-streaked curls spread like a halo on the pillow. Sometimes he’s not; he’s off in Shuri’s lab running simulations and collecting data. On those mornings when he’s gone early, Thor remains in bed; he rolls into the center, buries his head in the pillows, and simply breathes. He only rolls into the middle when Bruce is gone. Never at night. Thanks to some nameless fear, he spends the nights stiff as a board along one edge of the mattress, one bad dream away from falling out of bed. It’s happened, too. Bruce gets most of the mattress, and they never say anything about it.

Bruce’s pillow smells like green tea and smoke - and beneath, a thread of something like clouds, too. Thor knows the smell of clouds like the back of his own hand. Rain-soaked leaves. Damp earth. There’s a word for that, a word Bruce would probably know; something that rolls off the tongue like memory itself, smooth and cold.

Thor doesn’t know what his side smells like. Depression, probably. Sweat and sadness.

On other mornings, Bruce is still in the room, but not in bed. Sometimes he’s in the kitchen, humming too cheerfully as he makes tea and drums his fingers on the countertop. Or brushing his teeth, or taking a shower. Thor always stays in bed until Bruce leaves the bathroom. There’s something terrifyingly intimate about sharing a bathroom with someone - weaving around each other to grab the comb, the razor, toweling your hair dry while the other person brushes their teeth. Always orbiting, never meeting.

So he stays out of the bathroom until Bruce is done. 

 

Bruce takes long showers at night. Long enough that Thor sometimes falls asleep waiting for him to come out.

He doesn’t know why he’s waiting.

 

His smiles are too wide, his movements too wild. At times Bruce seems like a caricature of a younger Tony Stark: flashy grins and a swagger more suited to a red carpet than a laboratory, quick turns on one heel and finger guns across the room. It’s as if there’s a silence he’s trying to fill. His false cheer is infectious as the flu. It burrows into Thor’s heart, and the bitter aftertaste of something wrong, something wrong makes him cringe.

So in the kitchen one day, orbiting each other in their quest to make dinner, Thor asks him, “Are you okay?”

Bruce pauses over the stove. He’s cooking some kind of dish from Southeast Asia, packed with spice and flavor that zings like lightning across Thor’s tongue. It’s something they can both agree on. When he looks at Thor, the greying curls tumbling softly into his eyes, he smiles. And it’s a different smile then - not a bursting camera flash but something soft and sweet. Thor feels warmth bloom in his chest.

“Yeah,” Bruce says. “Yeah. I’ll be okay.”

It’s not a promise, but it feels like one. Thor pats him on the shoulder - sparks fly from the contact, and Bruce laughs, startled. He grins sheepishly and grabs a jar of turmeric from the fridge; he passes it to Bruce, silently hoping their fingers meet again, just so he can see the sparks again. So he can hear that laugh, honest and  _ real. _

Bruce’s smile widens briefly, when he grabs the jar. “Thanks, Thor,” he says, and turns back to the stove. He lifts the lid from the saucepot, and a great puff of steam escapes, blowing his white-streaked hair back. He’s humming softly -  _ humming, _ unbelievably so. He spoons turmeric into the pot, stirs, and swipes a finger through the sauce to taste it. Thor knows deep in his chest that he’s seeing the true Bruce here. The Bruce without the mask; the Bruce that he’d become friends with, what feels like years ago. 

He’s still watching, as Bruce sucks the sauce off his finger and makes a small, thoughtful noise.

Thor blinks. Slowly, he turns to stare into the fridge, his gaze landing on a bag of celery. The celery does not respond, but he imagines that its leaves look a bit sympathetic. He sighs heavily.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Thor says to the celery. He hides behind the door and covers his face with his hands. What the hell, he mouths. What the  _ hell. _

“Hey, while you’re there, can you get me some garlic?”

“Sure.”

 

So when it begins, it’s Thor’s fault. 

It begins, as many things do in his life, with lightning - but the moment, his memories of the moment, forever linger in the breath afterwards. In the silence. Charged, and tense, and eternal before the thunder.

It begins with the steam, and the dark.

 

It is almost night - a bluish-grey twilight paints the room, and a thunderstorm rages overhead. Thor wakes from a midmorning nap that had quickly turned into actual slumber, and his teeth feel like they are wearing sweaters. He is shirtless and spread-eagled on the mattress; his face is pressed into Bruce’s pillow. Smoke and rain, smoke and rain.

Bruce is not there.

Overhead, rain drums on the roof, so loud that Thor can barely hear his own breath. He swallows, grimacing at the staleness of his mouth, and unfolds himself from the bed. It’s dark enough that he can barely see the his own hand. It’s odd, for Bruce to be gone at this time of night. Usually he’s back by now. Perhaps he’s still in Shuri’s lab, running the numbers on their Thanos-tracking simulation.

He peers into the bathroom. 

The door is open, but steam fogs the mirror, and there’s a damp towel on the floor. Thor automatically picks it up and pitches it into the laundry chute. Bruce must have taken a shower and left for the labs. He briefly regrets not being able to see Bruce before he left, and the same embarrassed heat he’d felt in the kitchen flares in his cheeks. 

This is a disaster.

Something tells him to leave the lights off - to let the night linger, to feel rather than hear or see the rain pounding the roof. Steam still billows; Bruce’s shower must have been recent. Thor starts to brush his teeth, and hopes that he’ll be able to get back to bed. His nap had lasted most of the day, and he feels too - alert. Too charged. He might be up all night, but he doesn’t want that - unless Bruce is awake too, in which case he’ll go to the lab to help him work. Thor suspects that he’s not much help in there, though the Wakandan tech is much like Asgard’s own. He just… He’d rather just be there, sitting on a desk and watching the others work. Watching Bruce work. 

Thor has gotten used to falling asleep at the edge of the bed, with Bruce just behind him. Not quite next to, but still there.

He spits in the sink and rinses. Then lightning flashes through the skylight, and -

The shower turns off. The shower. 

Thor hears the sudden gap in the hiss of water and drops his toothbrush, dread surging through him. He’d thought Bruce had left. He didn’t - he hadn’t -

The door slides open.

In the nightlike gloom of the bathroom, Bruce’s body is nearly invisible - just a blue-black-glimmer through the water droplets on his shoulders, a shine in his hair. He doesn’t see Thor. He reaches for a spot on the floor and, finding it empty, gropes for a fresh towel. He is turned away from Thor, and the muscles of his back flex, as he drapes the towel over his head and furiously dries his hair. 

Thor’s eyes drift down - then, embarrassed, snap back up. Steam curls around his ankles.

Bruce puts on the fresh clothes he’d laid out, and runs a hand over the back of his neck. He twists, winces slightly. There are fresh scrapes on his knuckles. 

Unthinkingly, automatically, stupidly, Thor says, “You okay?”

Bruce flinches so hard he crashes into the shower door. The sound echoes impossibly loud, a clap of thunder in the small space. “Sorry!” Thor says, holding both hands out. “I - I didn’t mean to startle you, I was just…”

Bruce’s mouth falls open slightly, his chest heaving. His hair drips forward into his eyes. Thor swallows and, as lightning flickers through the skylight, can’t bring himself to look away.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. The words are nearly swallowed by the sound of rain.

Bruce’s hands, splayed on the shower door, curl into fists, and he breathes something that Thor can’t hear. Thor moves closer, and Bruce repeats it a bit louder. “He was afraid.” His voice cracks slightly. 

“Who?” Thor says.

“The Hulk,” Bruce says, and Thor draws closer, and now - now he knows something is deeply, deeply wrong. Bruce’s face is wan and hollow; galaxies swim in the dark circles under his eyes, that’s how dark they are, dark as space, and -

His eyes. Bruce is  _ terrified. _

Thor closes the toilet lid and sits on it, looking up at Bruce. The man is a ghost made of cloudy moonlight, shivering against the wall. “Please,” he says, and cannot say anything more.  _ Please talk to me. Please let me help. Please, come closer, closer. _

Bruce does. “He used to hate thunderstorms,” he says shakily, leaning against the shower door so heavily that it creaks. “Thought they were guns, or cannons. He tried to punch the sky, once.”

Bruce swallows; Thor’s eyes drift down to watch his throat. “Even when he was… when it was just me,” he says, “I used to hear him scream at thunderstorms. Just - constant, in the back of my mind.”

Lightning, thunder,  _ thunder _ \- a great drumroll, a crash of cymbals so loud that Thor’s teeth rattle, and he feels the storm stirring in his blood.

“He’s gone,” Bruce whispers, and suddenly he is shaking. His eyes pierce through Thor, and Thor shivers at the terror he sees within them. “Thor, he’s  _ not there." _

“What,” Thor breathes.

Bruce shakes his head. “He’s  _ gone," _ he repeats, his voice cracking. “He hasn’t been here for months, not since -”

“Not since Thanos,” Thor says. His chest hurts. “Oh, Bruce -” 

He surges to his feet, ready to catch Bruce if he falls over, and he does, huddling right against Thor’s bare chest. Bare chest. He had been shirtless this whole time. His mortification vanishes as Bruce’s damp hair touches him; it’s like ice on his skin, and Thor slowly reaches up, for Bruce’s head. Even wet, the curls are soft beneath his fingers.

The pieces fall into place, then. Bruce’s early quietness; his coldness and swinging moods, testing the limits of his soul without the Hulk caging him. Then the wildness. The fistfight with Clint in the dining hall. Everyone had wondered why the Hulk had never appeared that day, even when Clint punched him square in the mouth. Bruce’s lip is still scabbed over. The Hulk’s healing factor had left him, and every scrape, every mark stayed on his skin as if tattooed there. 

Thor sees a bruise on the back of Bruce’s neck and ever so lightly runs his fingers across it. His nose dips into Bruce’s curls, and now - now he smells the rain. The thread of sky that lingers in his nostrils, when he buries his face in Bruce’s pillow.

So the Hulk had a soul. There were two souls in Bruce’s body all along. And when Thanos snapped, the Hulk vanished.

Bruce had been trying to fill the silence this whole time.

Arms loop around his waist. Bruce’s hands skim over Thor’s lower back, and press there, cold against the heat of his skin. His fingers twitch slightly over his waistband. This isn’t a hug. It isn’t just a hug. Thor’s heart pounds, pounds in his chest, and his own hand drifts over Bruce’s shoulder blades.

“You’re going to be okay,” he says.

“It’s so quiet,” Bruce whispers into his chest. Into his heart.

“Do you need anything?”

“I… I need…”

Bruce shudders and inhales, and looks up at Thor. “I need sound,” he whispers. He swallows, an embarrassed flush creeping up his neck. God, Thor can  _ feel _ him blushing, with his hand on the bare skin of Bruce's neck. “In there,” he says, tilting his head towards the shower. “The water, and the storm outside - all that noise made me feel like the Hulk was back. I went back in for another round, when it... wasn’t enough...”

Thor took a deep breath. “Okay,” he said. His hand crept up, threaded through Bruce’s lightning-streaked hair, and the other man shivered. “Sound. I can do that.”

Bruce is shivering. “Thank you,” he whispers. “God, thank you,” and he leans his forehead against Thor’s chest again. Thor looks down at the top of Bruce’s head, at the small patch of bare skin where his curls bloom outward, and feels a strange urge to kiss it.

He doesn’t. Not quite.

His free hand leaves Bruce’s waist and reaches towards the skylight - and his fist clenches.

Lightning explodes across the sky, thunder tripping on its heels.

Bruce’s lips smile against his chest.

 

Thor drifts out of the bathroom as if in a dream; the thunder knocks the floor out from under him - the lightning flashing through the windows makes the walls seem invisible. Bruce’s hand is locked around his wrist, grounding him through it all. Lightning arcs between them where their skin touches.

His heartbeats slam in time with the thunder.

The time between leaving the bathroom and collapsing into bed is fuzzy, for him. The growling thunder overhead vibrates so deep within him that it shakes loose reality - it erases time, it consumes space. All he knows is that he is facing towards Bruce, now, closer to the center of the bed. Closer to him.

“Is this okay?” says Bruce, in the breath between lightning and thunder.

Thor can only nod and draw closer. Bruce’s eyes are fixed on his, unblinking, intent. He nearly freezes, and unbidden his hand snakes from under the blankets to cup Bruce’s cheek. His fingers slide up into Bruce’s hair, and Bruce closes his eyes, leaning into the touch. 

“It’s okay,” Thor says quietly. Bruce’s own hand finds Thor’s hip beneath the blanket and tugs him closer. To Bruce’s side of the bed.

Their breath mingles.

“Did you know,” Thor whispers, when there’s a hush in the storm outside, “that your hair looks like lightning in the clouds?”

Lightning flashes to punctuate his words, and Bruce smiles. “You would know,” he mumbles. His fingers dig into Thor’s side - preparing himself, anchoring himself - and somehow that touch makes it easier for Thor to surge forward and kiss him.

 

The whole time, he is afraid of going too far. His hands held apart the energy gate to the neutron star in Eitri’s forge - and now, Bruce’s skull lies in those same hands, bone thin as porcelain. His nails can scratch; his arms can squeeze hard enough to break bone; his weight alone is enough to crush Bruce beneath him. After all, the Hulk is gone, and all his benefits with him.

Well, so he thinks.

Bruce dispels any fears that he might break in Thor’s grip when he suddenly seizes Thor’s wrist and flips them both over. Thor startles when he feels the faint stirrings of arousal, and nearly wriggles away, but Bruce seizes his head in both hands and kisses him into the pillows, sharp and fierce. There are teeth, there is tongue, and electricity thrills up Thor’s spine. 

Then he moves down to mouth at Thor’s throat. A strangled moan escapes him; he throws his head back. Bruce’s hand still anchors one of his own to the pillow; their fingers lace together.

Bruce moves down and sinks his teeth into the flesh above his collarbone. The pain and pleasure make Thor arch his back, gasping, and his hand grips Bruce’s even tighter. His other hand has found its way to Bruce’s waist.

His blood sears, and lightning arcs through the room.

The loudest clap of thunder yet rattles the glasses in the kitchen.

 

Later, when the kisses subside to the point that they’re merely holding each other, Bruce reaches across Thor to turn on a light. The whisper of cloth and Bruce’s weight over his chest distract him for a while - but then Bruce lies back down and Thor sees -

“Oh,” he breathes, mortified. His hand reaches out, seemingly of its own accord, to brush the red and purple on Bruce’s skin. Thor’s handprint is nearly purple on Bruce’s hip, and jagged red bruises mark the path of lightning across his skin. Bruce’s hand is hardly better - the same marks streak down his forearm nearly to his elbow.

“I’m so sorry,” Thor says.

“It’s fine,” Bruce whispers. His own hand traces the bite on Thor’s neck, and the scratch marks on his chest. There are probably bruises on Thor’s shoulders. “I gave as good as I got.”

Thor lets out a startled laugh.

 

By unspoken agreement, Thor reaches to turn the light off. Bruce huddles closer, tucking his head under Thor’s chin; he throws one leg over Thor’s, and Thor reaches below to press a hand to the small of Bruce’s back. The other hand crosses over and rests on Bruce’s head, Thor’s fingers lazily toying with his hair. Bruce smells like a forest after rain.

The smell of the world when a storm has passed; the shadow of a thunderstorm, the prologue to life. There’s a word for that.

“Petrichor,” Bruce mumbles.

Thor blinks, not realizing he’d said that out loud. He whispers back, “What?”

“Smell of rain. Petrichor,” Bruce says again, mumbling directly into Thor’s chest. The words vibrate in his ribs. “That’s the word.”

And with that, his head drops against Thor’s chest, and he falls asleep. Thor hugs him closer. He finally presses that soft kiss to the crown of Bruce’s head, and closes his eyes.

Thunder rumbles in the distance. Somewhere, rain is falling in a forest.


	2. Chapter 2

And it’s nothing like Bruce has ever felt before.

 

It begins, as many things do in his life, with a racing heartbeat.

Bruce stumbles into a clearing and sees the others standing around Vision’s limp body; the color has bled from him, making him a monochrome smudge in the dirt, a hole punched out of the universe. Natasha sways slightly behind Steve, one hand clutching her stomach.

“What is this?” Rhodey says, his voice shaking. He turns, staring at all of them, but nobody has an answer. “What the hell is happening?”

A brief, white-hot flash of pain. Bruce closes his eyes, hissing softly. With difficulty, he retracts the Hulkbuster’s helmet, and even the warm jungle air feels cool against his feverish skin. He takes a deep breath, holds it. It burns like poison in his lungs.

The loamy soil of the forest is uneven beneath his feet, and his heart is hammering, hammering on the inside of his ribs. Oh, he knows this too well - the panic, the swelling surge of a tsunami building in his chest, opening the gate to something far more terrible. The Hulkbuster is a prison. It was made for someone smaller than him, smaller than the Hulk, and if the Hulk picks _now_ to come out… there’s no telling how the suit will mangle his body. He has to get out, he _has to get out._

Everything burns with the pain of a Hulk transformation and more - as though a chasm is opening up inside him and something is falling through, dragging its claws against his soul in a desperate bid to save itself. He grits his teeth and leans on the tree. His vision swims. God, he needs to get out of the suit -

Rhodey is suddenly hovering behind him, hands tugging at the emergency release; the suit unfolds around him, and Bruce falls seven feet to the ground, smacking into it so hard that his bones ache with the half-remembered memory of the fall onto the Bifrost. He groans, and the sound echoes in his skull.

There are hands on him, rolling him over. Voices. “Bruce,” one voice demands. “Bruce, hey, open your eyes, look at me. Look at me!”

His head explodes with pain. “Oh,” he chokes out, his face twisting, and his head lolls back as agony ripples through him. “Oh, _fuck_ -”

“Bruce, are you okay?”

He feels his hands clench into fists, but in a distant way, as if someone else was doing it. “Does it look like he’s okay?” snarls a familiar voice, and suddenly his head and shoulders are lifted, resting in someone else’s lap. “Banner. Banner - _Bruce.”_ A larger hand takes one of his own.

And Bruce doesn’t know what to do. None of his seven PhDs have prepared him for this, where he can feel part of him crumbling, crumbling - nothing has prepared him for death, which has always seemed avoidable until now. Is this it? Is this mundane decomposition, like a cigarette in an ashtray, his end?

“Not him,” the familiar voice says, shaking. “Not you, not you too, Bruce -”

Pain lances through his skull one last time, and he goes limp.

Bruce comes to five minutes later, with the feeling of something raw and torn in his chest and the lower half of his face covered in blood from a copious nosebleed. Still on the ground, the jungle earth soft beneath him. He takes a shuddering breath.

Everyone is staring. Everyone. Bruce smells the stressed tang of a building thunderstorm, feels the hairs on his arms standing up, and realizes that he’s lying half in Thor’s lap. The god himself is staring down at him, his eyes wide and panicked.

“Bruce?” Steve breathes.

“Hey,” he says feebly, lifting a hand, and passes out again.

 

Later, Thor lingers in the doorway to Bruce’s borrowed Wakandan suite, and says in a soft voice, “Are you sure?”

Bruce lies on the bed and stares at the ceiling. He swallows. “I’m sure,” he croaks, and wipes his nose. There is still blood crusted above his upper lip, and it tickles as it breaks off. “I’m fine.”

Thor looks like he doesn’t believe him. He takes a deep breath and exhales, still looking at him. “I’ll be across the hall if you need me,” he says. Assuming that Bruce will need him - and perhaps he will, some distant day, but not now. Not until the burden of helping himself becomes too much to bear, and when has it ever?

But Thor’s eyes are soft and hollow with loss. Thor is unmoored in this world, his home scattered like Alderaan across the cosmos, his people dead. The team he left after Ultron is not the same team that greeted him on the battlefield. And there is a quiet kinship in that, the sense of unbelonging; they’re both in the same spot. They are living in a world that has moved on without them.

At the end of it all, at least they have each other.

So Bruce takes a deep breath, pushes away what he was going to say - a simple, quiet “thank you” - and meets Thor’s mismatched eyes. “I’m here for you, too,” he says.

Thor nods slowly and leaves without another word. Bruce hopes he knows that he meant it.

 

Once, in a time gone by, Bruce’s travels led him to the Bunda Cliffs of southern Australia.

It was nighttime in early October, unusually cool for an Australia on the brink of summer. The waves crashed below; insects buzzed, animals rustled in the grass. He had stood at the edge of the cliff and looked down, down, and wondered how long it would take for the Hulk to come out if he jumped. In the moonless night, the ocean beneath was an endless blank abyss, as dark and unyielding as the night sky above.

Now he looks into himself, searching for a response. A snarl, a roar, even a disgruntled grumble. The place where the Hulk lies is as empty as the ocean below the Bunda Cliffs: a ceaseless emptiness, hollow and dark. The abyss, for once, does not look back.

He returns to himself, to the too-comfortable bed and the sheets so soft they slide on his skin like air. His heart is pounding. Bruce takes a deep breath and grabs fistfuls of the sheets, staring at the ceiling. “Oh, no,” he whispers.

Outside, rain begins to fall. The silence roars within his head.

 

He spends the next few nights curled around his pillow on one side of the bed, eyes wide open against the smothering dark. Every now and then he reaches out to the void within him, whispering out loud into the empty room. “Hulk?” he breathes. “Hulk, are you there?”

Nothing. He can hear his heart pounding in his ears, an echoing drumbeat in an empty room. Bruce shudders and presses his face into the pillow.

Where is he?

 

The days grind on. Bruce leaves his mark on his suite; it begins to accumulate papers and books and other paraphernalia, almost but not quite resembling home. A couple of weeks in, he decides that he wants some food, damn it, and ventures into his suite’s kitchen for the first time.

It comforts him to set his hands to a familiar task and let the mundanity overtake him. To put it crudely, Bruce has always cooked for two; the Hulk’s metabolism is far faster than his, and after transformations he’s always hungry. Even when the Hulk is away, he eats with the frequency and intensity of a hobbit.

Lately, his appetite’s not what it used to be, but the habit of cooking extra is hard to break.

One night he returns from the labs to find Thor elbow-deep in his refrigerator, picking pieces of leftover chicken tikka masala out of a container with his bare hands. Seeing Thor clutching the container with an expression of sheer terror on his face makes Bruce laugh out loud, and he almost stops to snap a picture. He invites him over for lunch the next day.

It starts to become a… a thing. A regular thing. They take breakfast in the kitchen with the others, but wander back to Bruce’s room for lunch and dinner. It’s comforting to cook, and comforting to know that Thor likes to eat. And over time, Bruce finds that Thor likes to cook, too - even if his role is minimal: handing Bruce ingredients or dicing vegetables. One more thing they can bond over; one more reason why Bruce is still tethered to this world, and not floating unmoored in the silence of his mind.

It is not comforting when he accidentally nicks his finger while prepping chop suey - anticipating Thor’s arrival - and the wound does not start to heal. After all, he has super soldier serum running through his veins, no matter how perverted; his healing factor isn’t as strong as Steve’s, but it’s there.

It should be there.

Bruce stares at his finger for a few dazed moments before returning to himself; he methodically sweeps the whole contents of the cutting board into the trash can, throws the cutting board away too, and grabs a napkin to staunch the bleeding. His blood is radioactive, after all. It may have stabilized while he was on the run from Ross, in the early days, but it’s still deadly. He’s not taking any chances.

He pulls the napkin away to look at his finger. It’s still bleeding. Bruce swears and throws the napkin in the trash, sucking on his bleeding finger. He’ll let Shuri know about the radioactive stuff in the trash. For now, he needs to chop more celery. And find some bean sprouts.

 

The rest of the team comes to Wakanda.

Clint shows up one week after Thanos’s snap, his golden Lab trotting along at his heels. Natasha is there to meet him as he comes off the Wakandan jet, and he crashes into her arms so hard it’s a marvel that she doesn’t fall over. Nobody asks why he’s there; nobody needs to. The broken look in his eyes and his clenched fists are answer enough.

Two months later a massive ship, easily twice the size of the lost _Statesman,_ comes screaming out of the cosmos to hover over Birnin Zana. They almost blast it out of the sky until Rocket gets a transmission from the people flying the thing. When they land, only three - one of them an unconscious Tony - come off. Rocket stands in the courtyard in front of the ship for nearly three hours, as if he’s waiting for more.

So Tony comes back to Earth with a hole in his side and dirt under his fingernails. He comes back with a broken nanosuit and two aliens in tow. He comes back with the light punched out of his eyes - like holes bored through iron, or windows in bombed-out buildings. There is no life left in them anymore.

Something happened to him in space, and Tony is so weak from alien viruses and mold spores and bootlegged alien liquor - according to the sheepish-looking alien with the red fin on his head - that he can’t even stand up; they give him a wheelchair, and he immediately goes about adding repulsors to the bottom so he can fly. Bruce hovers in the doorway to watch, as Tony takes the thing apart on his bedroom floor and fuses some nano-repulsors to its bottom.

“Why are you doing that?” he says.

Tony tightens a bolt and glances at him, his dark eyes hollow and dull. “Why not?” he says.

“Fair enough,” says Bruce, and smiles faintly. It’s an echo of a conversation they once had, of many conversations, bantering over lab equipment and computer monitors - and Tony can tell, because one corner of his mouth twitches. He returns to the wheelchair and powers it up. The repulsors charge up, and the empty chair lifts, hovering above the bedroom floor. The carpet beneath starts to singe.

Tony doesn’t seem to notice; his eyes are fixed on the chair’s empty seat. His hands flex in his lap, curling into fists.

“I’m next door if you need me,” Bruce says awkwardly, and ducks out.

 

Bruce is tired. Clint is tired. At breakfast, they both reach for the same mug in the communal kitchen.

Clint tries to make a joke about Bruce working too hard. Bruce, who has been running simulations all night on three hours of sleep and a cup of coffee stronger than the Hulk, grumpily implies that he is the only one doing any work around here.

It escalates. A crowd gathers.

Clint shouts that Bruce is useless without the Hulk. Bruce snaps back that Clint is useless point-blank, that all he can do is arrow tricks. Maybe Clint should have stayed on the farm with his family, instead of coming out here - oh wait, that’s right, Clint doesn’t have a family, does he?

Clint punches Bruce right in the mouth.

Bruce, who picked up a bit of judo while he was on the run, bodyslams Clint into the countertop and only succeeds because Clint is tired and not expecting it. His knuckles slam against the stone. Snarling, Clint pulls a knife from somewhere. Natasha disarms him, and Steve hauls him away to the other side of the kitchen, watching Bruce fearfully. Everyone is staring at him. Even Rocket, who has no idea what he is, what swims beneath his skin.

But Bruce looks around the kitchen, chest heaving and heart pounding, and spits the blood from his split lip into the sink. Not once during that fight did he feel any sign of the big guy. No roars. No words. No nothing. No sign that he was even there.

“I’m gonna… go,” he says awkwardly, clutching his mug of tea and sliding away. “Sorry, Clint. I - I didn’t...”

Clint gives him a jerky nod, his eyes flat and cold and yet terribly understanding.

This is bad.

 

He retreats into the bathroom and locks the door; Thor has taken to wandering in and out without warning, as if this room is his own, and Bruce doesn’t need him to see this. The bathroom is sleek, bordering on clinical; it looks like an operating room, all orderly lines and careful organization. So an operating room it shall become. Bruce shuffles towards the mirror and glances into it, ready to slice away and peel back the layers of his soul.

His hair is finally growing out, and he notices with some chagrin that there’s an awful lot of white and gray in it. From stress - not age. He doesn’t age like the others. If it weren’t for the stress of Hulk transformations, he’d be as young and youthful as Thor. Briefly, he wonders when the end of the line will be for the serum, when time finally begins to take its toll.

Bruce can’t meet his own eyes. They look - flat. Empty, somehow. He takes a deep breath and braces himself against the sink, forcing himself to stare into the mirror. “Okay,” he huffs, and sets down his tea. His breath fogs the mirror.

He has felt things, over these past few months or so. He has felt annoyance, and the bitter sear of rage in his gut when he reads the news, or when the vector simulations he’s running in Shuri’s lab fail. It builds and builds and is sucked away, falling into the endless chasm in his chest. So he must turn to something more permanent. Less fleeting.

Bruce turns to an old-yet-new memory - a vision, implanted in his mind what feels like mere days ago in Johannesburg.

He turns to fear.

 

Back then, Wanda had shown him nothingness. Her insidious red magic showed him an empty shattered place, devoid of human life - a world in which Hulk was the only survivor, for he had torn it down around him. He had rampaged through the empty cities, ripping them apart in search of another living soul, but there were none. He had outlived them all. The Hulk could not die. Only kill, rip and tear.

Bruce had tried to conjure up the same images - the same empty streets and broken buildings, the rubble, the loneliness throbbing in his chest and the dust swirling in the air.

But the moment he closes his eyes the memory changes.

He sees Tony, and Steve, and Natasha lying in the dust. Necks broken, the marks of thick fingers bruising their skin. A mangled mass of fur and metal that may have been Rocket; Valkyrie’s broken sword; the War Machine suit torn in half; Stormbreaker, embedded in Thor’s chest.

And that is what does it for him, seeing Thor’s broken body stretched before him, his blood still seeping out onto the dust. He pulls himself out of the memory, gasping and shaking and _crying_ because not so long ago, he thought that was a reality. He had told Tony, “Thor’s gone,” and had believed it because his eyes and ears and the Hulk’s last memories told him so.

He takes a deep breath and looks at himself again, at the tears streaming down his face.

Somehow, the fear of losing Thor is the greatest fear he has ever felt - so great that he yearns to run across the hall and break down Thor’s door to see if he’s okay. He needs to see Thor’s eyes blink; he needs to see him breathe; he needs to hear him speak, because if he can’t -

A thunderclap loud as cannon fire shakes the floor and punches right through his body.

Bruce yelps in alarm and covers his ears. It echoes, echoes, and the silence left behind rings. There are alarmed voices in the hallway, and the faint whine of repulsors and alien guns charging up. Bruce takes a deep shuddering breath and wipes his face, and goes to investigate. He has the presence or mind, or perhaps absence of one, to grab his tea off the counter on the way out.

The hall is filled with smoke and the stifling tang of lightning; fans whir in the ceiling and at the bottom of the walls, sucking it away. Rocket is aiming his massive gun at the door to Thor’s suite. Bruce elbows his way past Natasha and Rhodey, steps around Tony’s wheelchair (which is now armed with repulsor gun turrets) and shoves Thor’s door open. Everything is on fire, but small sprinklers in the walls are spraying water on the flames.

“What the hell?” he exclaims, and steps in.

“Bruce, wait a minute -”

He gently shoves Tony’s hand off his arm and steps into Thor’s kitchen. The apartment is empty, thank God, and he pulls up his shirt collar as a makeshift filter against the smoke.

Lightning crackles around the edges of a massive hole in the wall. His mouth hanging open, Bruce walks into the kitchen and sees, like the tunnel produced by two mirrors held up to each other, holes punched through the walls of the next three rooms. Stormbreaker lies at the end, buried in Clint’s kitchen countertop.

Thunder rumbles outside - distant now, more like chair legs dragging over a wooden floor than a gunshot. Bruce leaves the room, still holding his tea, and walks down the hall to Clint’s room.

“Hey, Bruce!” Clint calls. Bruce flinches briefly, but keeps walking. “Is Thor okay?”

“I dunno,” Bruce says over his shoulder. “He’s not in his room. Looks like he tried to summon Stormbreaker to him. Everyone’s rooms between his and yours are, uh… kinda trashed.” Natasha sighs, and Rhodes pinches the bridge of his nose. “Anybody know where Thor is?” Nobody does. Bruce sighs and shuffles down the hall to Clint’s room, sipping nervously from his mug of tea.

Clint’s room looks like a bachelor pad. He yanks Stormbreaker loose from Clint’s countertop, shivering at how its electricity ripples up his arms. He stares at it, hefts its weight in his hands. The rough wood rippling beneath his fingers is free of splinters, but his fingers still tingle as he touches it.

Then he remembers seeing the axe buried in Thor’s chest and chokes.

The same fear from before digs into him, and the axe slips from his fingers to hit the floor. The metal clangs on the tile. Bruce staggers into the mangled countertop and grabs it to stay upright, his heart pounding a mile a minute in his chest. And yet there’s nothing.

Nothing at all.

“Oh, Jesus,” he whimpers, and lowers his head. His arms are shaking - his knuckles are still bruised from his fight with Clint. “No. No, no, no -”

But yes.

The Hulk is gone.

Bruce puts his head on the countertop and lets out a wild, desperate sob.

He can’t tell if it’s from fear or joy.

 

Four minutes later, he’s composed himself enough to grab the axe and head back out - in time to hear Thor’s voice rumbling down the hall. Bruce clutches his mug so hard the ceramic creaks, and walks back.

Thor is standing with his back to him, talking to the others. Electricity still sparks from his shoulders and along the lines of his armor - which he is still wearing, after months; doesn’t that hurt? Does he have any other clothes? “No bed, no bathroom,” Tony is saying. “Kitchen’s shot to hell. Coffee machine’s broken.”

“Oh, the horror,” Rocket drawls, bracing his gun against his wiry shoulders.

“I think,” Steve says awkwardly, an uncomfortable distance away from the group, “there’s an empty room at the end of the hall.” That makes Thor’s broad shoulders stiffen for some reason, and his hands - locked behind his back - clench. “You can -”

“No, I’ll - I’ll just move in across the hall,” Thor blurts out. Bruce, who was about to tap Thor on the shoulder and return Stormbreaker, freezes. Across the hall. Into Bruce’s room. When was he consulted on this? Was this ever on the table?

He and Tony lock eyes, and Tony’s eyebrows fly up. _Is he serious?_ Tony mouths. Bruce grimaces and spreads his hands helplessly.

Steve’s eyebrows come together. “With -?”

“With Bruce,” Thor says, as if everyone should have known that.

“Ooo-kay,” Tony says slowly, his eyes drifting back to Thor. Thor lifts his chin defiantly. “You sure?”

Bruce swallows and looks down at Stormbreaker in his hands. Something stirs deep within him - a feeling, a memory, lying on jungle soil with his head in Thor’s lap - and he grabs it tighter, looking up. “I’m down,” he says out loud.

Thor whips around, eyes wide. An unnamed thing passes between them - charged, tense, a bit awkward. Thor did basically just invite himself into Bruce’s room; but to be fair, Thor already practically lives there, as if it was an extension of his own. They eat together. They sit in companionable silence together. It’s not much, but it’s something.

He remembers how pristine Thor’s room looked, even when it was on fire: the bed crisply made, not a single item out of place, the floor clean and tidy. There were no signs of life.

Maybe this is for the best.

Thor’s eyes haven’t left Bruce’s for a long time. He looks a bit confused, as if he doesn’t know what he’s looking at - or as if he’s spent a long time looking, and what he’s seen has changed before his eyes into something he can’t quite understand. Bruce clears his throat. “Thor, could you get the door for me?”

Thor blinks; a spell is broken. “Sure, sorry,” he says, stumbling and nearly falling on his way to get the door. Bruce gives him a smile and walks into his room.

Their room.

This is already weird.

 

That night, Thor brushes his teeth, strips off his armor, and promptly folds all six feet and three inches of his glorious godly self into the tiny chair by Bruce’s desk.

“What are you doing?” Bruce says slowly.

“Sleeping,” Thor says, blinking at him. His head is practically between his knees, that’s how folded up he is. A huddled mass of cloth and flesh. At first Bruce thinks that well, it’s his funeral - if he doesn’t want to share the bed and actually be comfortable, then that’s Thor’s problem.

But he thinks of his sleepless nights. The void within that keeps him awake, whose emptiness howls like air over the top of a bottle at all hours of the day and night. Something anxious and warm flutters in his stomach, and he pulls back the covers.

“The bed’s big enough,” he says. He gestures vaguely at it, and Thor’s eyes slowly slide to the pillows and rumpled sheets. His gaze is strange, vaguely astonished, and Bruce wonders briefly if he’s overstepped his bounds. But Thor was the one who suggested this. Perhaps he even wants it.

“Okay,” says Thor. He extends his legs and unfolds himself from the chair, and tentatively approaches the bed.

They settle in, back to back, plenty of space between them. Thor huddles so close to the edge of the bed that Bruce thinks he might fall off, and at first he thinks this was a bad idea. But the awareness of another soul in the room with him - Thor’s body near enough to his that he feels his warmth seeping into the sheets - is strangely soothing.

The dark beneath the cliffs is quiet. For the first night in a long while, he closes his eyes.

 

Bruce wakes and sees Thor facing him, huddled in the blankets at the far edge of the bed. He looks peaceful. Soft. Half-dissolved in the golden morning light. The God of Thunder is not supposed to be soft, but here he is, with his face mashed into the pillows and one arm flung out haphazardly towards Bruce’s side of the bed. There’s something adorably endearing about him. Bruce smiles and slowly slips out of bed to take a shower.

 

The following night passes much like the first, except that when Bruce wakes Thor is already up and poking through the kitchen. Bruce blinks sleepily and sits up, the sheets sliding on his skin. Thor is dumping several teabags into a kettle. “What are you doing?” Bruce yawns. That is… not how you make tea. Not how Bruce does it, anyway.

Thor glances up. “Making tea,” he says blandly. Alright, if you say so. “Want some?”

Bruce can very clearly see the packaging for all seven kinds of tea that went into the kettle, and shakes his head. Thor shrugs. He’s wearing a shirt - one from Bruce’s closet, if the way that the fabric stretches over his chest and shoulders is any indication. That’s an improvement over the past couple of months; he’s finally discarded his armor, though the battle is still raging. Even the thought of fighting makes Bruce tired, and he slumps back onto the pillows, sprawling over Thor’s side of the bed.

Thor’s pillow smells like cold metal and a gust of mountain wind, and a dark musk that fills his nose like a cabinet full of spices. He closes his eyes and breathes in.

He hears a cup being filled. “You sure you don’t want some? This combination - it tastes very similar to a drink we have in Asgard.”

Bruce stiffens at the mention of Thor’s lost home; but in his position he can’t see if Thor is stricken or upset from the slip-up. He reluctantly lifts his head from Thor’s pillow.  “Yeah, sure,” he sighs, shoving down the blankets and scratching his jaw. “I’ll have some.”

Thor gives him a strangely intense look, a wrinkle between his brows, but he nods and grabs another mug.

 

He showers at night after Thor has fallen asleep. The rumbling of the water on the shower floor is a comforting grumble in the back of his mind. After a while it makes him believe that the Hulk is back.

Wakanda doesn’t run out of hot water, it seems. He sits on the floor of the shower and listens to the water fall, until his hands and feet shrivel to prunes and the moon travels past the skylight.

 

When he comes out, Thor has stolen all the blankets. He is no longer huddled at the edge, no longer in danger of falling. Bruce slips into bed next to him, tugs back some of the blanket.

Thor does not stir. His face is turned towards him now. As Bruce falls asleep, his eyes rove over the planes of Thor's face, grey and soft in the gloom of midnight.

 

They’re cooking lamb roghan ghosht in Bruce’s kitchen - one of Thor’s favorites, since it has practically every spice known to man in it. Bruce has been teaching him to cook some of the dishes he likes; Thor has graduated from ingredients-passer to preparer, wielding a knife to create instead of destroy. Maybe someday Thor will learn to cook, but for now Bruce is content to do most of the grunt work.

Thor hesitates as he puts his knives into the dishwasher. “Are you okay?” he says suddenly.

Bruce pauses over the stove and glances at him. Thor is giving him that confused look again, where he’s not sure if what he’s looking at is real. Bruce can relate; he gives himself that same look in the mirror every morning. But there’s something anxious to Thor’s mismatched eyes that sends a bewildered flutter through Bruce’s gut, because it looks like Thor _cares._ That concept shouldn’t be as foreign to Bruce as it is.

He cares. That’s… nice.

Bruce’s hair tumbles into his eyes, but he doesn’t push it away; it’s not that long yet. He gives Thor the kindest smile he can and says, “Yeah. Yeah… I’ll be okay.”

Thor’s face softens into a gentle smile, and there it is again - that perplexingly pleased flutter that he doesn’t quite have a name for. The god pats him on the shoulder. A flurry of sparks fly from their contact, and Bruce lets out a startled laugh. It feels like a real laugh, astonished and real and pure somehow.

Bruce turns back to the pot and opens it up, and a cloud of cardamom-scented steam billows out. He idly hums snatches of show tunes under his breath as he stirs the sauce. Thor grabs a jar of powdered turmeric from the fridge and passes it to him; their fingers brush slightly, and Thor hesitates briefly with his hand outstretched before putting his knives into the sink.

He spoons some turmeric into the sauce and tastes it, sucking a bit of sauce off his finger. Something clinks gently in the fridge, and Thor heaves a sigh.

“What’s that?”

“Nothing,” Thor says, a bit too quickly.

Bruce smacks his lips and peers at the sauce again. “Hey, while you’re in there,” he says, “can you get me some garlic?”

“Sure.”

 

Even with Thor there, lying on the other side of the bed, the great silence within him grows ever wider. He _knows_ his smiles are too sharp and wide; he _knows_ his voice is too loud; he _knows_ that each and every one of his gestures is inappropriately wild and far too snappy. Snap, snap, like gunshots echoing over a frozen lake.

He tries to ignore the weird looks that Tony, Shuri - hell, even Thor - give him in the lab, when he idly whistles between his teeth just to _hear_ something. Because sometimes it’s hard to even hear his own heartbeat. He’s always been able to before, but now the silence rings too loud.

 

So when it begins, it begins with the heartbeat Bruce has gone so long without hearing.

It reminds him that there is still blood flowing through his veins - that somehow, for some reason, he is still half-alive. And what is he supposed to do about that?

 

One morning he returns from a post-breakfast detour to Clint’s room - an apology for the kitchen brawl that turned to a friendly talk about Bruce and Thor’s Exciting Sakaaran Adventure, and then to a rekindled friendship - to find Thor passed out on the bed.

The sight freezes him to the spot. He immediately turns off the lights and gently closes the door. Thor is facedown on the mattress, sprawled like a detective’s chalk outline of a corpse on pavement. His breathing is slow; Bruce watches carefully to make sure that he’s not dead, before tearing his eyes away and bustling over to close the curtains.

Thor mumbles something in his sleep and shifts on the bed, stretching like a tired cat. The muscles of his back ripple. Something stirs in Bruce’s heart, watching Thor buried in the blankets, and he reaches up to rub the sudden ache in his ribs. He looks comfortable; he looks cozy; he looks at peace.

Bruce’s heart is thumping at a mile a minute inside his chest.

The man nuzzles the pillows, sighs, and falls into a deeper slumber. The flutter in his chest turns to an almost painful jolt, a stab of awe and amazement and admiration and -

Oh. Oh no.

He exhales, quickly stands up, and tiptoes out of the suite. Thor sleeps on.

 

That night he steps out of the shower, every muscle complaining and every joint insulted. He once had the body of a 25-year-old, molded by stress to resemble his late forties; now he truly feels like he’s on the wrong side of fifty, with all its requisite aches and pains. The lights are off; the gloom of twilight blurs the edges of the world. He stands and stares at the empty bathroom for a while, wondering if he remembered to turn the water off.

Then he realizes. It’s raining.

The drumming of rain on the roof is too quiet, too distant to fill the void within. His lip curling, Bruce throws the towel on the ground and yanks the shower door open again, turning the water pressure all the way up. The water echoes like gunfire in the small space.

A flash of lightning makes the bathroom glow, and the thunder slams overhead like a pair of massive doors.

 

In the delirious haze that only a hot shower can give him, Bruce steps out for the last time. He swears that the towel he’d thrown away was still on the floor, but no - there’s just a slightly damp stretch of empty tile, so he just grabs another one. It feels oddly wasteful; it’s surreal to think that merely six years ago he was hiding in the slums of Calcutta, without running water or towels or anything.

Then again, the world he lives in now is no less surreal. He dresses and rolls his head from side to side, feeling his neck pop and the muscles twinge.

“Are you okay?”

Thor’s quiet words are like a sudden gunshot, and Bruce lets out an undignified yelp, slipping on the puddle and crashing into the shower door. Thor’s face is flushed red with embarrassment. “Sorry,” he says, holding both hands out apologetically. “I - I didn’t mean to startle you, I was just…”

Bruce’s heart is thumping.

“Sorry,” Thor whispers, and lets his hands drop. There’s a smear of toothpaste in his beard. He reaches up to wipe his mouth, and Bruce watches the motion, watches the muscles in his arm ripple. His own hands curl into fists. There is a question in Thor’s mismatched eyes, and Bruce feels an undeniable need to answer it.

He whispers, “He was afraid.”

 

Bruce’s legs betray him and Thor surges forward to catch him. He huddles into Thor’s warmth, clutching him, because he is solid and real and undeniably _there,_ and it feels right somehow. One of Thor’s hands - perhaps unconsciously, perhaps not - drifts up to cradle his head, fingers threading through his still-damp hair. He shivers and leans his forehead against Thor’s chest.

He can hear Thor’s heart beating.

The sudden awareness of Thor’s body pressed against his is not startling or perplexing; it is slow, solid, a settling of something inevitable into its place in reality. Bruce takes a deep breath and exhales. His lips brush against Thor’s chest. It tickles.

“You’re going to be okay,” Thor says, his voice strangely choked.

“It’s so quiet,” Bruce breathes.

“Do you need anything?”

 

Thor’s clenched fist reaches for the sky. Thunder crashes so loud that it makes his heart skip a beat. And he smiles.

 

At last, they come crashing together in the great expanse of Bruce’s bed, and it’s nothing like Bruce has ever experienced before. His teeth buzz with electricity when Thor surges forward to kiss him, and the taste - like spice, like mountain air, like the sky itself - makes a deep and dark hunger awaken in him.

So Thor kisses. But Bruce devours.

Thor's gasp when Bruce suddenly flips them both over, pinning Thor to the mattress and pressing him into the pillows, is nearly swallowed by the thunder. Lightning flashes when Bruce bites Thor’s lip; Thor whimpers slightly, and he tastes blood. Good, _good._ This has been a long time coming. Pressing himself so close that the space between them vanishes - melding their bodies, clutching Thor so close that their skin sticks and their bones crash -

This does not fill the void left by the Hulk, but it fills _something_ that Bruce didn’t quite realize was empty.

Beneath him, Thor is shivering with barely-restrained pleasure; his eyes are wide and desperate, literally glowing. Bruce sucks a mark into the corded muscle of his neck and moves down, to the pliant flesh above his collarbone. Their legs tangle under the blankets, reminding him of the space between the on that first night. The absence of that space is… is _intoxicating._

Thor grabs him, and lightning sears his shattered soul.

 

It doesn’t go any further than this. No further than the marks left on each other’s bodies, the remaining dregs of passion swirling in their eyes. And Bruce is afraid of making it go further; he is almost afraid of it being over too soon, closing the loop and allowing for a gentle return to normalcy.

But after it ends, Thor simply tangles his legs tighter with Bruce’s, holds him close. There's a brief, deep silence, the warmth between them tangible and real. “There’s a word for that,” Thor mumbles, half to himself. His breath filters through Bruce’s hair. “The smell of rain.”

An odd remark. But one that Bruce knows the answer to nonetheless. “Petrichor,” he whispers.

“What?”

“Smell of rain. Petrichor,” he says. “That’s the word.” There is a rumble of thunder, distant and low. Bruce leans his head against Thor’s chest and closes his eyes.

 

In his sleep, he returns to the cliffs. The moon rises over the ocean now, and he sees its brilliance reflecting off the waves like shattered glass. He watches the moon rise for a while, before turning his back on the cliffs and walking away. Thunder rumbles in the clouds above.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mildly NSFW in some places, but nothing explicit.

And it rains in Wakanda.

 

It begins, like many things do in this strange new life, with a question.

When Thor wakes, Bruce is still asleep - half on his pillow and half on Thor’s, one arm flung over his head and the other cradled against his chest. For a moment he is frozen in fear; he has spent too many nights at the edge of the bed, and now, lying so close, he thinks he may have crossed a boundary that never should have been there in the first place.

But the arm flung above Bruce's head is streaked with faint pink lines. And Thor breathes out, remembering. Remembering. He lightly touches his lips, and probes the inside of his mouth with his tongue. There's still a small dent there, where Bruce had bitten so hard in his passion that he'd drawn blood, and even the memory of that makes Thor alert with something burning and bright, all the way down to his toes.

Sparks suddenly fly from his fingertips, zapping his lips. He flinches and puts his hand down.

Bruce is half in shadow and half in lukewarm light; the sun filters weakly through the curtains, gilding his hair and the arch of his cheekbones, the solid lines of brow and nose. He looks like he could dissolve at any minute. He looks like the most unshakeable thing in this world.

He opens his eyes.

Thor needs water. That’s the only explanation he can think of, for his suddenly dry mouth and his aching chest. The light from the window glows in his eyes, and Thor doesn’t know if he’s ever seen anyone more beautiful in his life. His fingers itch to run through Bruce’s hair.

Bruce squeezes his eyes shut, then groggily opens them. His arm slides over his face. “What time is it?” he asks. His voice is slightly husky from sleep.

Thor doesn’t know what time it is; he doubts he could tear his eyes from Bruce’s face to check. “Dunno,” he whispers back.

Bruce peers at him over his arm, and the light catches his eyes again. There’s something soft and warm there that Thor has never seen before - or perhaps he just hasn’t been looking hard enough - but whatever the case, it makes his heart melt. An alert curiosity; a realization, a brief second of hungry uncertainty, even. As if afraid Thor will dissolve to dust if he touches him, Bruce reaches out hesitantly. His fingers skim over Thor’s beard; static pops between them.

Seized by a sudden impulse, Thor gently grabs Bruce’s hand and presses a kiss to the soft, smooth inside of his wrist - to the faint marks of last night’s lightning. Bruce’s eyes widen. Thor lets his lips linger, still looking at him, and Bruce’s fingers curl reverently against his cheekbone.

“Your beard tickles,” he chokes out.

He immediately looks mortified. Thor lets out a short huff of laughter - “That tickles, too,” Bruce hisses - and grips his hand tighter. “Come here,” he says softly, and loops his arm around Bruce’s waist, tugging him closer. There's a brief hesitation that makes Thor stop, mortified, but then Bruce melts into him and laughs into his chest; the sound vibrates through his ribs, and he is so _relieved_ that he didn't fuck this up. He wants Bruce - no, he needs him, needs this solid body next to his own. Bruce tethers him. Bruce completes him.

Thor only hopes he can do the same for him.

“Are you gonna be okay?” he whispers into Bruce’s neck.

Bruce is silent for a long while, simply holding him. “Maybe,” he says. “I - maybe.”

“You’ll be okay,” Thor says softly. “You will.” Bruce takes a deep breath, props his chin on Thor's shoulder, and says nothing.

They lie in silence for a while longer - awake, alert, yet satisfied in this eternal moment. A kind of eternity built from layered constants; forming a new, stable reality. Thor could spend the next thousand years just lying here, soaked in dim sunlight and warm beneath the blankets. If he had his way, he would.

Bruce's stomach growls loudly, making him huff slightly against Thor's neck. His breath tickles. Thor grins. “Want breakfast?” Bruce whispers.

Thor hums wordlessly, smoothing the rumpled fabric of Bruce's shirt. His fingers brush skin; it burns him like a furnace. Like a star. He lets his hand splay wide across the planes of Bruce's lower back, the warmth seeping into him. “Maybe,” he says.

There's a nervous flutter in his gut, and he slowly leans back. Bruce blinks at him and opens his mouth as if to speak, but shuts it again. Thor remembers that split second of hesitation: that brief moment before Bruce drew close, warmth against warmth. He takes a deep breath and whispers, “Can I kiss you?”

He expects confusion, perhaps. Maybe even good-natured ridicule.

What he gets is Bruce staring at him, shocked beyond shocked, his eyes wide and his lips slightly parted. As if he didn't expect it. As if he expected a repeat of last night, where in their grief and confusion they crashed into each other without words, just hands and lips and a litany of unspoken passion.

He's asking permission this time. He doesn't want to mess this up. He _can't._

Then Bruce's lips twitch into a fond, astonished smile. “Of course,” he says softly.

So he does.

They have time. They have all the time they need. Thor gently threads his fingers through Bruce's curls, cradling his skull, and kisses him slowly. Bruce presses himself closer and kisses back, lips pliant and soft. It is gentle, languorous, like the slow creep of dawn over the mountains.

They have all the time in the world.

 

But then, like all things, it slowly winds down to nothingness: merely a tangled stillness, hair mussed and eyes bright and breath hot in the space between them. Their noses brush; Bruce’s eyes gleam softly through his lashes, and his lips are red and swollen. He did that. Thor did that, and the thought sends a ripple of pleasure through him. He takes this moment and sears it into his memory. His own body still tingles where Bruce’s lips and hands touched him, and it’s strangely relieving to know that he is still capable of feeling it.

There was the burn of Nidavellir’s star; and there is the burn of Bruce’s touch; and it’s hard to tell which one is stronger.

“So,” Bruce says quietly. He is slightly breathless. “Now what?”

Thor exhales, gently rubbing circles into Bruce’s side with his thumb. He tries to speak, but nothing comes out - because he doesn’t have an answer. Because to be completely honest, he had not expected that it would get this far, to the point where they wake up in each other’s arms and face the dawn together, instead of apart. He hadn’t even dreamed this would be possible.

“I don’t know,” he whispers.

“Do we tell the others?”

Bruce’s hand drifts to Thor’s hip and anchors itself there, warm and solid. His eyes are uncertain. Questioning. Thor doesn’t have any of the answers; he never has.

“They’ll find out eventually,” he says anyway.

 

It’s not until Bruce leaves the bed to brush his teeth that Thor doesn’t know what Bruce had been referring to. The two of them, or the Hulk’s absence.

But whatever the case, the others will find out eventually.

Won’t they?

 

“Hell of a storm last night, wasn’t it?”

Thor looks up from his scrambled eggs.

At first all he can see is a pair of furry ears, twitching above the tabletop. Then there’s a great clatter of falling metal, and Rocket clambers into the chair across from him. He plunks a mixing bowl full of scrambled eggs, bacon, and potatoes on the table.

Thor’s eyes slide to the floor; a pillowcase full of silverware lies under Rocket’s chair. “Do I want to know?” he says flatly, looking back at Rocket.

“You do not,” Rocket says firmly. “Don’t worry, nobody’s gonna die.” Thor wonders if the silverware is made of vibranium, and silently prays that Birnin Zana will still be standing by tomorrow.

The raccoon - not a rabbit, Thor knows damn well what Rocket is, he just likes to mess with people - props one elbow on the table and leans in. “So,” he drawls again. “Hell of a storm, eh? It was you. Right? Wasn’t it?” He waves his arms around for emphasis. “It was - goddamn, that was _nuts_. Thunder! Lightning! Crash, bang, boom! Felt like the damn palace was gonna come down on our heads. D’you know you set some trees on fire?”

“I did _not -”_

“Sounds like someone had a _rough_ night,” Rocket says, putting a gleeful, filthy emphasis on the word. He gives him a slow, meaningful wink that distorts his entire face, and oh. Damn it. _Damn_ it.

Thor slams his fork down, making the plates rattle. Oh, of course Rocket would be the first to figure it out. “I didn’t have any kind of night, what are you talking about?” he snaps.

Rocket rolls his eyes. “Dude,” he drawls, leaning across the table to poke Thor in the forearm with his fork. “I could see it coming from Contraxia. You were smitten long before you two lugs moved in together.” Thor huffs, irritated, and glowers at his eggs.

“But hey,” Rocket says. “We got bigger things to worry about than who the God of Thunder’s been bonin’. I don’t give a shit. I ain’t judging who you’re sleeping with.”

“I’m not ‘sleeping with’ him,” Thor grumbles, his cheeks flaming. “Or - or _boning,_ or whatever.” _Not yet, anyway,_ he thinks - and then his blush deepens when he realizes how far his mind had leapt. That image he’d committed to memory, of Bruce looking absolutely wrecked in the morning light, comes back with a vengeance. He crosses his legs tightly and silently starts to list all the Earth names for stars that he can remember. Polaris, Betelgeuse, Rigel, he thinks. Not in the dining hall, not in the fucking _dining hall,_ for _fuck’s_ sake...

Rocket is still talking. “You take every chance you fuckin’ get, pal. I mean - that thing he got goin’, with the…” The raccoon gestures vaguely at his head. “And the…” He puffs his cheeks out and holds his arms bowed out at his sides, in a fake macho swagger. “Y’know.”

“I know,” Thor snaps. Regulus, Sirius, Draco, Canopus.

“That don’t really do it for me, but hey, good job baggin’ him. What a package deal. Brains _and_ brawn, even if he’s a little green sometimes. Bet it’s rough trying to find guys bigger than you -”

A few sparks shoot from his fingers. _“Rocket,”_ he snarls.

“Hey, hey, hey!” Rocket says, holding his tiny hands up defensively, “I ain’t tryin’ it, I ain’t knockin’ it! You look like you enjoyed yourself.”

And he taps the side of his neck, leering. Shit. Thor flinches and hunches his head down to hide the mark Bruce left on his neck. He might as well have a flashing neon sign above his head that says, Bruce Banner And I Made Out In Our Room Like Teenagers Last Night - Surprise! The raccoon cackles, clearly enjoying this. “Nah, don’t be ashamed of it. Just put some ice on it, rub it in a circle, maybe trip and fall into somethin’ in front of everyone and whack your neck -”

Thor shakes his head and leans back in his chair. “How,” he says, astonished, “do you know so much about removing -”

He pauses.

“Hickeys?” Rocket finishes, giving him a sardonic look. The word sounded awkward in Thor’s head, and it’s downright vulgar rolling off Rocket’s tongue. “Man. Buddy. Pal. I was on a ship with Quill for four years. I’ve heard the stories. ‘Fore he turned himself around for Gamora, he’d fuck everything of legal galactic age that moved, and I mean _everything.”_

Despite his flippant tone, his eyes are raw and wistful - holding a ghost of pain that doesn’t quite haunt him as much anymore, made less tangible by remembrance. Knowing what you fear can help you defeat it, after all. “He told me a few things,” Rocket says, his eyes drifting away. “Ain’t ever had to use any of his ‘tips,’ but y’know. Quill really had a knack for graphic detail. It sticks with ya.”

Thor makes a face and shrugs. “Who knows,” he says idly. “Maybe you’ll find a nice… otter somewhere, or something, and it’ll come in handy.”

Rocket rolls his eyes and digs into his bowl. “Blech,” he mutters, stabbing the cubed potatoes. “No. Been there, done that, got the lousy T-shirt. Just remember. Ice, fake injuries - it’ll come in handy more ‘n once.” Thor swallows and looks down at his plate. He knows the value of faking things; he grew up with Loki, after all, and Loki was always trying to get out of things when they were children.

But he can’t help but listen. There’s always been an odd weight to Rocket’s words: a hard-won wisdom, gritty and sour but undeniable in its truthfulness.

The first week back, after the sting of defeat had faded to a dull ache that no longer distracted him, he’d looked up raccoons on the tablet the Wakandans had given him. According to Wikipedia, Rocket’s kind live only two or three years in the wild. Twenty in captivity. At last estimate, Rocket’s cybernetics stretch his life to a little over twice that; he has time left. Provided he doesn’t get shot or drink himself to death first.

Thor wonders what he might find out if he sits down and works out how old Rocket really is. Run proportions, compare numbers. Maybe they’re the same age, relatively. You never know.

It’s strange, taking advice from a being two hundred times younger than him - but time passed does not denote wisdom. The universe is cruel. They both know that. Thor spent a millennium and a half in the eternal sunshine of Asgardian life, at the top of the hill. Six years later, the only things left of Asgard are asteroids.

Do the math.

So Thor toasts him with his mug of coffee and says, “I’ll remember that. Thanks.”

Rocket gives him a terse smile that’s more of a grimace, and fiddles with his fork. He takes a deep breath. “Y’know,” he says softly, “I can’t tell if you got it lucky or not, with him.”

Thor frowns. Something about Rocket’s tone makes him put down his own fork.

“You said, on the pod,” Rocket continues, not looking at him, “that if you were wrong about Thanos, what more could you lose. Or somethin’. Basic gist.” That moment returns with violent force, stabbing into his gut: the dim of space, the soft blue-and-purple glow of nebulae and stars through the pod’s viewports. Groot’s distant presence in that memory is like a cigarette burn on his hand.

But all that Thor can remember hearing is, “ _Me, personally? I could lose a lot.”_

Rocket shakes his head. “Buddy, you could lose a _lot,”_ he says quietly. “You got only one thing tethering you to this godforsaken hellsite of a shithole universe. That’s a lot to lose. But let me tell you somethin’, Thor - you’re his tether, too.”

“What?”

“Don’t tell me you haven’t noticed,” Rocket says lowly. He looks around furtively and leans in. “Now, I may be just a simple raccoon that don’t know shit, but somethin’ tells me that Bruce Banner is fucked up,” he says. “He got that look in his eyes. Not battle-shock, but something a hell of a lot worse. If you haven’t noticed, then you’re a way worse person than I thought you -”

“I’ve noticed,” Thor blurts out.

Rocket raises an eyebrow.

He says again, quieter this time, “I’ve - I’ve noticed. I know what’s happening, and -”

“Is it about how he can’t get the Hulk out?” Rocket says blandly.

At Thor’s shocked stare, he rolls his eyes and says, “Good grief, I’ve done my fucking research on you freaks. I’ve seen the footage. These Terrans you run with are fucking crazy. What’s the deal with him, though, anyway?”

Thor shakes his head. “That’s not my story to tell,” he says heavily. “If you want to know, go ask him, but it’s up to him whether or not he wants to say anything.”

“That’s what I figured,” Rocket says grimly. “But Thor - that don’t matter right now. Listen to me.” He stands on his chair and jabs a finger at Thor. “He’s holding on to you. You, of all fuckin’ people. That’s fucking special. So you know what you do? You grab back. You hold on to him and don’t let go, because if you do you might never get the chance to grab him again. I _know_ you might not get that chance.”

“Rocket -”

“I know that _for_ _sure_ ,” Rocket says over him, jabbing himself in the chest with every word. “I _know.”_

They stare at each other; Rocket seems as surprised by his own grief as Thor is. The raccoon’s face twitches, and he opens his mouth to speak, but thinks better of it, sitting back down. Thor can see the ghosts behind his eyes, now, even worse than before. The rows of empty chairs on either side stretch on and on for eternity.

They eat in silence.

Thor finishes first, and Rocket clears his throat when he gets up to put away his plate. “Keep your trap shut ‘bout the silverware, will ya?” he quietly demands. Thor nods and gives him a brief smile.

“And, uh... tell Banner to put on a glove, or something,” Rocket adds. The smile drops off Thor’s face. “You fucked up his hand real good. He’s in there,” he says, gesturing at the kitchen where Bruce and Clint are whipping up breakfast for the others, “telling ‘em he burnt it cooking, or some shit. _I_ know better. I know what electrocuted flesh looks like _._ Where the hell did he put that hand?”

Rocket screws his face up thoughtfully, and is silent for a terrifying few seconds. “Ooh, there’s a thought,” he says at last. His eyes slowly slide to Thor’s, and he grins ferally before asking, “Weird question, but can you shoot lightning out of your d-?”

“And we’re done here,” Thor says, striding to the kitchen to put his plate away. Rocket’s hysterical cackling follows him all the way out of the dining hall.

 

In the lab, he opens a holographic display and starts writing on it. What he knows; what he supposes. Rocket once said that he was nearly eight years old, in terms of how long he’d been alive. Putting that number is in Asgardian terms would make it easier to comprehend. “What’re you doing?” Bruce says, powering up the computers at his workstation.

“Just some math,” Thor says. He sets up a proportion and squints at it, seeing if he’s got this right. He runs the numbers through a calculator and blinks at the result.

“What does that mean?” Bruce asks softly, over Thor’s shoulder. His warmth presses close.

Thor swallows past the sudden lump in his throat, and sets up another proportion. Asgardian lifespans are hard for others to understand; he’ll put it in Midgardian terms. “Rocket is going to be eight years old this year,” he says, not looking at Bruce.

“Oh. How - how many does he have left?”

“Forty, if he’s lucky - maybe even more.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. How, uh - how long is the average Midgardian lifespan?”

Bruce stares at the screen for a while, then at Thor. “It depends,” he says slowly, “but it’s usually between 70 and 80.”

Thor grimaces and errs on the side of optimism, putting 80 in the denominator. He does the math and stares at the result. That number is… terrifying. “I don’t know if I got this right,” he says, seeing the furrow between Bruce’s brows, “but…”

“No.” Bruce shakes his head. “No, you did it right, just…” He runs a hand over his face, and sighs, closing his eyes. “Wow. God.” Thor nods slowly.

They stare at the small “16” written at the end of Thor’s simple equation, its glowing edges like an ugly scar on the hologram’s surface.

Bruce takes a deep breath and covers his face; Thor hesitates, glancing around, before putting a gentle hand on Bruce’s arm. His throat is burning with shocked tears. He thinks of the Earth teenagers he’s seen on TV; he thinks of the faceless, formless Peter Parker, who he has never seen, but who haunts Stark’s every move and echoes in his hollow voice.

Too young. Rocket is _too young._

_“I could lose a lot.”_

Thor clears the screen. Bruce leaves his side to open up programs on his computer and begin yet another simulation, another virtual trip to the stars. He watches him go.

 

Drifting back to their room at half past midnight, they meet nobody. The nights in Birnin Zana are spun of howling winds and silence; the air is thick with grief and humid heat. Loss is nothing new to Wakanda, who has lost kings before, but they grieve enough for a thousand nations. The snap did not discriminate. It took far more than half the population.

Thor knows that grief. He has lost father, mother, brother and sister; friend and enemy, home and hearth. He already thought he lost it all, once, and he fears nothing more than losing this, losing _Bruce,_ when he needs him the most. But - he glances at Bruce, at the shadows thrown on him by the cool electric lights. Thor yearns to be needed. It is selfish to want to be needed by this man, to know that _someone_ needs him here and alive.

All he wants to do is make things right. And if not right, to make them okay.

“I can hear you thinking,” Bruce says softly. He glances at Thor through his lashes, and the way the dim light strikes his eyes makes something warm pool in the pit of Thor’s stomach. “Not really, but - you know. You alright?”

Thor takes a deep breath and pushes the door open. “Yeah,” he says. “You?”

“Getting there.”

Bruce gently guides him through the door, one hand on the small of his back, and closes it behind them. Thor reaches for the main light switch, but Bruce laces their fingers together and tugs his hand away. “So, last night,” he begins.

Thor's stomach twists with dread. “Was it too much?” he whispers. Bruce’s face is so painfully beautiful in the room’s darkness that he has to look away. His eyes land on the bed: unmade, sheets rumpled with two-toned shadows. Even after this morning’s gentle embrace in the light, he doesn’t know for sure if Bruce still wants this. He invited himself in, after all. What if Bruce was just too polite to say no? “I'm sorry if -”

“No, no, it was -”

“ - if I went too far, I -”

Bruce’s eyes gleam like a sliver of moon through the clouds. He squeezes Thor's hand so tight that he can feel the bones shift, and whispers fiercely, “Thor. It was _perfect.”_

A gut-punch of sweet relief hits Thor so hard he nearly breaks down in tears. He squeezes Bruce’s hand again. “It was,” he breathes, “was it?”

“It was,” Bruce whispers. He slowly reaches for the back of Thor’s neck and pulls him down, and his touch makes him shiver - “It _is.”_ Thor exhales, shaking with relief, and presses Bruce up against the wall. and Bruce tugs him close so that they’re flesh to flesh, clothes the only thing separating them.

“It’s okay,” Bruce whispers. “It’s you. You could never hurt me.”

Thor nods slowly, gently kissing the flesh just above Bruce’s jaw. “I would never,” he whispers back.

Bruce’s fingers curl over his neck; they twitch over the shortest hairs at the bottom. “Er - don’t take this the wrong way,” he says quietly, “but I’m - my legs are kinda tired.”

Thor nods. “So, bed, then?”

“Yeah - _hey!”_

Thor bends down and hooks an arm behind Bruce’s knees, lifting him up. Bruce laughs breathlessly and loops his arms around Thor’s neck, kissing his cheek, and Thor moves in to capture his lips as they fall into bed. Lightning flashes outside the windows, thunder tripping on its heels; a gentle hiss of rain begins to fall.

This is softer and shorter than the night before - with a different urgency, a push and pull, pas de deux. Not the desperation of finding oneself before it is too late - it the awareness that this is how it is _,_ and how it should be _,_ but how long _will_ it be? Will it stop before it truly begins?

Now that they are in bed, Thor feels the day’s weariness grinding him down, and without thinking he leans a bit too deeply into Bruce’s warmth. Bruce wheezes slightly against his lips. He shifts his body to keep from being crushed, and one thigh slides up between Thor’s legs.

There’s a crack of thunder outside. Thor takes a deep, shuddering breath and opens his mouth wider, kissing Bruce harder and deeper, to hide his sudden surge of panic. Perhaps panic, perhaps not; he’s felt this much before, and he knows what it is, and he doesn’t know if it’s right. The Bruce he thought he knew in the days before Ragnarok - that Bruce had boundaries, a border wall bristling with gun turrets and barbed wire.

But when Bruce is the one crossing these boundaries, do they even matter anymore?

Bruce’s lips slow, and his grip loosens; but his hand is still pressed to the back of Thor’s head, crushing their lips together, and that leg is still there _._ He presses a kiss to the lightly-scarred flesh below Thor’s eye and moves his leg up a few inches, and Thor’s skin is on _fire -_ his hips snap against Bruce’s thigh, and he lets out a strangled moan against Bruce’s neck.

He smells something burning.

They both smell it; Bruce jerks away, and sees a gently-smoking handprint seared into the sheets under Thor’s hand. He turns to Thor, eyebrows raised. Thor begins, “Sor -” and cuts off with a sharp gasp when Bruce very deliberately moves his leg again. Amusement flickers in his eyes. Thor shakes his head and says, “You little shit.”

Bruce laughs softly, breathlessly, and withdraws his leg. “Thanks,” he breathes. Thor can see the exhaustion in his face now, and feels a bit bad for delaying his rest. He gently kisses him and untangles their legs, gathering the blankets around him. Bruce hesitates briefly, as if he didn’t expect Thor to draw away - but he seems fine. It’s alright. Hopefully.

They settle into bed; Bruce’s back is pressed to Thor’s chest, and for a while Thor does not know what to do or where to put his hands. He rests a hand on the solid planes of Bruce’s stomach, and he meets skin and not cloth. His hand rises as Bruce breathes. He lets his head drop against Bruce’s shoulder and, after a moment of thought, drags the hand up Bruce’s chest to rest against the warm flesh. Thor can feel Bruce’s heart beating beneath his fingers.

Through the fabric of his shirt, Bruce grabs his hand. “G'night,” he says softly.

“Goodnight.”

 

Thor snaps awake when a rush of displaced air makes Bruce’s curls tickle his cheek. “Hey, Bruce, Thor, you guys awake?” says a soft voice. “Are - oh, _fuck.”_

Clint is standing in the doorway, a steaming mug in his hand and Lucky at his heels. They stare at each other in the golden morning light. Clint swallows, and his grip tightens on his mug, to keep himself from dropping it. “Sorry,” he whispers. “Jesus Christ, I - _wow.”_

Bruce stirs against Thor’s chest, and Thor looks cautiously down at him. “You wake him,” Thor says softly, his eyes flicking up to Clint’s, “and they’ll never find your body.”

The lights flicker overhead; Thor can feel the telltale prickle of sparks skittering across his face and hands. Clint swallows visibly, and he wonders what he looks like, to make Clint look vaguely constipated and a bit terrified. “I believe you,” he whispers.

“You’d better,” whispers Thor.

“No killing, Thor,” whispers Bruce, far too loudly for someone who has just woken up. Thor and Clint stare at each other in panic, and that moment of shared horror nearly makes him laugh.

Yawning, Bruce untangles himself from Thor and sits up. His hair is a variegated tangle of grey, black and white, like the plumage of some kind of bird. “What do you want?” he says to Clint.

Clint takes a moment to compose himself. “It, uh,” he says intelligently. He clears his throat. “Rocket liked the potato dish you cooked yesterday. He tried to make it himself, and when I got down to the kitchen half the place was on fire - I tried to cook it for him, but he said it ‘wasn’t the same.’ Or something.”

“So you need me,” Bruce says. “To keep the place from burning down.”

Clint nods. “Basically, yeah. If you’re not, you know. Busy.” Thor gives Clint what he hopes is a suitably unimpressed glare.

Bruce scrunches up his face apologetically. “Not at all -”

Without warning, shadows flicker on the wall behind Clint, and Tony whirs into view. “Wakey, wakey, eggs and bakey, kiddos,” he sing-songs, not noticing the two of them in bed at first. And then he does, and in his shock he forgets to stop his wheelchair and runs over Clint’s foot. Clint curses, and Bruce snorts with laughter, the sound vibrating into the bed.

“Oh my _god,”_ Tony whispers, staring at them. The beginnings of a shocked, joyful smile twitch at the corners of his mouth. “That - I  - _that_ explains the storm the other night! Oh my _god -_ ”

“Get your head out of the gutter, you cretin,” Bruce says, a slightly embarrassed flush creeping up the back of his neck - but he sounds fond. He returns Tony’s good-natured grin, and they both look _happy_ \- for each other, for how their old friends still find ways to endure. Tony’s hands are half-covering his face; he’s grinning, sure, with wild insane glee, but in his eyes is something wistful and amazed. It’s unique, Thor supposes, to see happiness so clear and plain before him. But he looks at Bruce and sees the tension in his shoulders again, the white-knuckled curl of his fingers against the mattress, and sighs.

He glances away. Clint is watching them with the gaze of his namesake, a slight wrinkle between his brows.

 

Midgardians call it by many names. Spooning. Cuddling. Snuggling. All very cute, all very ridiculous. Whatever it is called, they do it a lot these nights. And no matter who is the “big spoon,” they find themselves doing what Thor did before: slide a hand under the other’s shirt, hold it against the bare flesh and beating heart, and fall asleep. Their heart in each other’s hands.

Except for one night, when Bruce’s hand freezes against Thor’s stomach and, after a lingering, tense moment, drifts down and threads beneath Thor’s waistband. His fingers are shaking slightly; the gentle feather-light touch lights Thor’s blood on fire.

“Is this okay?” he breathes into Thor’s ear.

Thor’s heart slams against his ribs. “Yes,” he chokes out, and Bruce kisses the back of his neck. The hand dives beneath his last layer of clothing. “Yes - oh, _god -”_

 

Thor now has an answer for Rocket’s question. It’s a strong, affirmative “no.”

 

“That was you last night, wasn’t it?” Nebula crosses her arms and refuses to move, glaring up at Thor. “The lightning?”

“Maybe?” Thor says slowly.

Nebula nods curtly. “Learn some self-control, next time,” she says, uncrossing her arms and walking away. “The lightning messes with my cybernetics.”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, be better. And find something to do other than get laid.”

“We’re _not -”_

Nebula walks very deliberately out of earshot. Thor puts his head in his hands.

 

In his mind, Thor has a list, divided into two columns: people who know, and people who _know._

Some things are obvious, and his and Bruce’s togetherness is not one of them. They do this in the shadows behind closed doors; what the others see is merely an unusually close friendship that nobody else can understand. A lot can happen in two years - what’s one more thing to add onto the pile?

What is obvious - what _should_ be obvious - is how Bruce acts like a man hanging onto life by three fingernails and a toe. A broken man. There are many secrets rattling around inside Bruce’s skull - some days it feels like Thor’s the only one who can hear them. It enrages him beyond belief. Do these people not care? Do they not _see?_ How could they have fallen so far in such a short amount of time?

So he has a list.

People who know about him and Bruce; and people who know about him, Bruce, and the Hulk. No Hulk, only Banner. That second column is depressingly empty. He doesn’t know who to trust with Bruce’s secret, because if his old friends are now the kind of people who can’t see something so clearly in front of their faces… that bodes trouble.

 

_You’re at the edge of the world._

That was a saying they had on Asgard. It meant that someone was going too far with their words or actions, that they were close to the point of no return, because on Asgard you could easily sail off the edge and fall to your death.

Bruce will say something if Thor goes too far. That’s the only rule that Bruce has. The thing is, Thor doesn’t even know where the edge of this world is.

Bruce might know. He is trying to find it. He is a scientist; he experiments with his hands and tongue, and observes, and concludes, and repeats, because a good experiment always has multiple trials. He probably has whole pages of information on Thor by now. Lists of every color Thor’s skin can turn. The times, averaged and plotted on a graph, for long his body tenses when Bruce’s hand sweeps down his back and drifts lower to squeeze. Cause and effect flow charts: press here, squeeze there, kiss this and bite that, eliciting gasps and moans from him that are almost embarrassing in their honesty. It is Bruce’s job to probe and question; he is filling the void in him with data and answers.

Perhaps he needs a new hypothesis, Thor thinks one night, when the curtains are shut and the door is triple-locked with Stormbreaker jammed beneath the knob. The lightning crackling across his skin is the only light in the room; Bruce’s eyes spark in it, blown wide and wanting. He doesn’t know where their clothes have ended up, or half the blankets, but it doesn’t matter.

He pins Bruce’s wrists to the headboard with one hand and reaches down between them with the other. Bruce’s startled gasp is drowned out by a crack of thunder. “Jesus Christ,” he moans.

Thor squeezes, and murmurs in his ear, "Wrong pantheon,” and Bruce laughs, and then -

 

Clint stops him in the hall the next morning and jerks his head towards his own room. “C’mere,” he says sharply. “I need to ask you something.”

“Alright, sure.”

Thor follows Clint into a room that’s just short of being condemned as a health hazard: dirty clothes are scattered everywhere, there’s old and suspiciously crusty plates on every flat surface, and the dust on the lamp is so thick it seems sentient. The massive gash in the countertop, from where Stormbreaker flew into it, is still there, even though the wall has been patched.

Clint doesn’t seem to care about the state of his room. He just closes the door and gives Thor a sharp-eyed stare. “He’s got bruises on his wrists,” he says bluntly. “And lightning burns. They yours?”

“...Yes?”

“The non-consensual kind?”

Thor’s mouth falls open. “How dare you,” he breathes, and his hand clenches. Lightning sparks across his knuckles. “How _dare_ you accuse me -”

“I dare ‘cause I’ve seen it happen with my own two eyes,” Clint snaps. His eyes glint like steel, a cold fury that Thor has rarely seen in the archer, but never fails to send chills up his spine. “And so has Bruce. I just wanted to be sure, Thor, because you’re a good guy. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve just known too many good guys who turn on their loved ones when it gets tough.”

Thor takes a deep breath, and exhales. “Right,” he says. “I understand.” Loved ones. Loved. That _is_ what Bruce is: loved. That’s not something he can ever go back on.

Clint nods jerkily. “Good. But what’s the story?” he says. “Don’t - don’t get too into detail with it, I’m too sober for that conversation. But I’ve never seen a bruise stick to him for longer than three hours. Thor, what the hell happened to him?”

That’s not his story. That’s not his secret. He wants to tell Clint, but he can’t, because that is one line that he can’t bring himself to cross. It’s something that Bruce has control over in this life. He can’t take that away from him too.

“Ask him,” he says softly. “Ask him, and if he tells you, don’t tell anyone. It’s his story.”

“It’s his,” Clint repeats, nodding. He clasps Thor’s shoulder and squeezes, his eyes dark and sincere. “You’re doing alright, Thor,” he says firmly. “You’ve got it good. I’m happy for you.”

“Thanks,” Thor says.

He smiles wryly. “Y’know, you hit the Black Panther statue out front,” Clint says.

Thor sighs and covers his face. “I didn’t do it on purpose,” he groans. “It just _happens._ That’s how storms work when they get out of control, I wasn’t -”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it. You were a little too _distracted,”_ Clint says, grinning. Thor gives him an unimpressed stare that he feels would work better if he had glasses to look over. “That statue’s made of vibranium, you know. It got juiced up real good; its eyes are glowing. Shuri’s a little pissed at you.”

“Wonderful,” Thor mutters.

“She knows about you two, by the way,” Clint adds. “I told her.”

“You _what -”_

Clint shakes his head rapidly. “No, no, she already figured it out! She just asked me to confirm it. She and the Dora Milaje started a betting pool when you two moved in together.” Thor has no words. “I’m… not sure who won, or what it was about, but whatever.”

“Wonderful,” Thor says again, pinching the bridge of his nose.

 

Later, when Bruce says that Clint came to him and asked him about the Hulk, Thor just nods and holds him close. He returns to his mental list and adds Clint’s name to the second column: the ones who know, who are not too blind to see.

That column is depressingly empty; Clint is the only one there, which surprises him. If he’d put money on who’d be first, Thor would have bet on Rocket, who had figured it out at that breakfast but was apparently too reserved to actually pose the question. He would have bet on Stark, who had been Bruce’s closest friend the moment they’d met, taking him in when nobody else could and when Bruce was more than content to slip back into obscurity.

But no - Stark’s mind is a minefield of grief. He’s too busy going through and defusing them to pay attention to the others. Maybe that’s a good thing, because armed mines are deadly, and if Stark explodes he could take them all out with him.

So on the left: Nebula, Tony, Rocket, Shuri, and the Dora Milaje.

On the right: Clint.

Both lists are far shorter than he wishes they could be. He buries his nose in Bruce’s curls and breathes, just breathes.

 

Then one day, nearly a month and a half after that first storm, Rocket barges into their room during lunch and asks Bruce, point-blank, if the Hulk is dead.

His trademark bluntness briefly enrages Thor - but it’s _Rocket_ , whose short life has been nothing but heists and supply runs and bounty hunting and death, and now that that is over his mind is free. Too free. Better that he fills the void within him with knowledge, instead of alcohol and fire.

Bruce nods and says yes, his eyes broken and dull, and when Rocket leaves he locks himself in the bathroom.

Thor sits down in front of the door and leans against it. He listens and listens, but can’t hear anything. The empty room stretches out before him, the signs of their new life together cluttering every surface, and he takes a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he says quietly, not knowing if Bruce can hear him.

Cloth rustles on the other side of the door, and there’s a gentle thud, as if Bruce has rested his head against the door on the other side. “Don’t be,” is what he says. “It’s… terrible, it’s awful, but it’s…” There’s a sigh. “It’s me,” Bruce whispers. “It’s - I’m all that’s left, in here.”

His voice is so soft that Thor can barely hear him through the door. He presses a hand to his mouth and sighs, thinking.

Then the door opens, swinging inwards, and Bruce scoots around the door’s edge to wrap both arms around Thor’s torso. No words, nothing to say - just two arms, anchoring himself to Thor. Thor tugs Bruce into his lap and holds him close. This is all he can do. He can’t pull the fragments of Bruce’s soul back together. His hands held Nidavellir’s energy gates open, but they’re not strong enough to hold Bruce together. This is all he can do.

“I’m going to tell them,” Bruce whispers at last.

Thor tenses up. “About -”

“About me.”

“But -”

“Thor, they need to know,” Bruce says, his voice strained. God, he is so _tired -_ Thor reaches out and gently cradles his chin, because Bruce looks so exhausted that he can barely hold his head up. “It’s only a matter of time,” Bruce whispers, “before something goes down in another part of the world where they’d need the Hulk, and the truth comes out. They’re gonna find out eventually.”

Bruce is right. He always is. So Thor takes a deep breath, squeezes Bruce’s hand where it lies on his shoulder, and says softly, “When are you going to tell them?”

 

So when it begins, it begins with a question. A simple, short question, typed up on the tablets the Wakandans had given everybody at the beginning, and sent to all of the others.

_“Can we meet in the labs after breakfast tomorrow? I need to tell you guys something.”_

 

The lab is quiet.

“Bruce,” Natasha says quietly. Her hair, bleached blond as old bones, is tied back in a loose ponytail. Thor has never seen her with her hair up, and the planes of her face seem harsh and stark as the Arctic.

Bruce lifts his chin.

“What’s going on?” she says. In the silence, the others shift: Tony in his chair, Steve standing next to a workstation, Nebula sitting hunched-over in a desk chair, with Rocket balanced precariously on its back and Kraglin standing behind her. Shuri lingers near the back of the room with Okoye.

Bruce is standing there flanked by Thor and Clint, in a neat, pressed pair of gray pants and a button-up shirt, looking every inch the respectable scientist that he sometimes is. His hair is combed; he’s washed his face, but hasn’t shaved, and his severe five o’clock shadow coupled with the dark under his eyes makes him look like a reanimated corpse. He jams his hands into his pockets.

“If this is about you and Thor, we all already know,” Shuri says. Okoye gives her a sharp look as Steve chokes on air, and Natasha’s face goes carefully blank.

“Well, we do now,” says Stark, throwing up his hands. “Thanks, your highness." Shuri grimaces apologetically at Thor, who shrugs. It was going to come out eventually. There's no such thing as a secret with these people.

Clint clears his throat. "That's not why we're here, though," he says, and everyone looks at him.

"What - you know what this is about?" Rocket says sharply. His eyes are cold and grim, arms crossed suspiciously across his chest. "All of it?" Clint looks right back at him and nods once. Rocket lifts his chin and sighs, quietly, settling back onto his seat.

Bruce takes a deep breath, and holds it. “Hulk’s gone,” he huffs at last, crossing his arms across his chest. “He died.”

The air rushes out of the room. Steve’s face goes white. So does Stark’s. “What?” he breathes. “He - is that possible? How -”

“I know it’s possible, because I’m living through it right now,” Bruce says, a bit harshly. Stark flinches. Thor knows it must hurt, not knowing that his best friend’s soul was collapsing before his eyes. “He’s been gone ever since the Snap.”

“What do you mean, gone?” Steve repeats softly. His arms are limp at his sides.

 _“Gone,_ gone,” Bruce says. “He’s not there in the back of my head anymore. It’s like this -” He picks up a notebook on the side table, riffles the pages, and grabs one half of the pages in each hand. “We were like this book,” he says, gripping it tightly. “Part of a cohesive whole, two equal halves, but then when Thanos snapped -”

He suddenly rips it in half, and everyone flinches convulsively. “Gone,” Bruce snaps. He holds up the last half of the book. “This is all that’s left. And he’s not coming back. He’s dead.”

He slams the other half of the notebook on the desk, and pushes up his sleeves. Bruises mottle his tanned skin. “My healing factor’s gone,” he says curtly. “And I don’t have the increased strength I used to. No Hulk, only Banner.” Steve presses a shocked hand to his mouth and stares at the floor.

Bruce clasps his hands together, the smacking sound echoing in the lab, and says, “So I’m off the roster. I’m no shape to go out there to do the work with you. I’m better off behind the scenes - in fact, I _prefer_ it, because this?” He taps his temple. “This broken mess in here is giving me some theories. I have a hunch. I - I’ve got some ideas.”

“Bruce, you don’t have to do this to yourself,” Steve whispers, horrorstruck.

But Bruce just looks at him and shakes his head, and says, “Steve. You know I can’t. I’m not just the Hulk, you know - I can do a hell of a lot of other things too. If - if I really have my finger on this, if my theory is right, then… we might be able to fix this. Turn back what Thanos did.”

He swallows. “I’m not going to sit on the sidelines while I’m still able to help,” he says quietly. “And I know none of you would want to, if you were in my place. So.”

Thor looks at him.

In the lab’s blue-white light, Bruce is ghostly and pale; but there’s a determined, desperate set to his jaw, as if he’s a man staring down the last mile of a marathon - a man on the battlefield, seeing the oncoming army, and knowing that the hardest part is just beginning.

“Let’s get to work,” Bruce says quietly.

 

That night, Bruce holds Thor close. His grip is iron-tight around Thor’s torso. Now it becomes real, Thor thinks. Now it’s out in the open. Everyone knows everything; and that knowing is more terrible, because now it’s impossible to deny anymore. At this angle, looking down at Bruce’s face, it’s hard to see his eyelashes against the dark shadows around his eyes. He looks gaunt, hollow. Thor lets out a shuddering breath and gathers Bruce closer.

Bruce is holding onto him. So he’ll grab back. Because he might never get a chance again.

“Thor,” Bruce whispers. His breath is warm against Thor’s collarbone.

“Mm?”

“I…”

Bruce’s fingers curl across Thor’s back. He takes a deep breath and exhales, shivering slightly. “It’s quiet again,” he says softly.

Thor knows what to do. For once, he knows what to do, and what he _can_ do.

As the thunder rolls in and rain begins to fall outside, erasing the edges of the world, Bruce whispers, “Thank you, so, so much.” He scoots up the bed, so his head is resting on the pillow instead of Thor’s chest. His eyes are wide and intent on Thor’s face: searching, almost, as if he’s peering around a corner to see if it’s alright to cross the street. “I…”

Their breath mingles. “Yeah?” Thor says softly.

“Thor, I…” Bruce shakes his head slightly, disbelievingly. “I’m glad you’re with me,” he whispers. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.” His words twist something deep within Thor, so deep that it makes his chest hurt to acknowledge it, makes his skin flame and his heart clench.

So he whispers, so softly that even he can barely hear himself, “I love you.”

Bruce’s breath leaves him in an audible wheeze. He leans closer, and their noses brush. He whispers reverently, “I love you, too. God, I - I love you -”

His eyes prickle with grateful tears. Thor throws one leg over Bruce’s and presses close, kissing him with both hands cupping his jaw, and the warmth of Bruce’s arms around him just completes him - Thor breathes in, breathes deep, letting the smell of rain fill his soul. The thunder crashes overhead.

He’s not letting go. He’s never letting go.

 

**Author's Note:**

> There we have it. Thank you all so much for reading! I'm glad that this fic touched you all in so many ways, and that you liked reading it. [Check out my tumblr for more Marvel and Thruce content.](http://www.thor-20.tumblr.com)
> 
> If you like to listen to playlists while reading works,[I made this Spotify playlist for you to listen to.](https://open.spotify.com/user/dtw172966pmcf2qabxramdtpr/playlist/6zBhkZvRYR2kHqsYOXiArv) It's all classical and instrumental music that captures the mood and tone of this story, so it won't be distracting at all. 
> 
> If you liked this story and want to read something similar, check out [Bring Them Home](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15565173) \- a story where Thor comes to terms with what's left of the Asgardian legacy, Bruce tries desperately to save Thor from himself, and Asgard is not as gone as it may seem. Thank you!


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